Abstract:

Delamination is one of the most prominent damage modes leading to the final failure of laminated composite structures subjected to quasi-static or fatigue loading. Recent trends in high-performance industries call for innovative damage-tolerant designs which allow damage to occur to a certain extent. Such damage-tolerant designs require accurate modelling and simulation tools that are efficient enough to be used on a large scale. Cohesive Zone Models are currently the most used choice for accurate delamination onset and propagation prediction but require a fine discretisation that makes them too computationally demanding for application into large structures.

This thesis presents innovative solutions to the fine mesh burden of Cohesive Zone Models through the use of the Floating Node Method to efficiently and adaptively refine the model, thus lowering the computational requirements of the simulations. The developed formulations can be applied to structures loaded under quasi-static and fatigue conditions. In addition, damage tolerant designs are proposed and studied using the tools developed during the PhD study.

Assessment Committee:       

Associate professor Jørgen Asbøll Kepler (chair)
Aalborg University
Denmark

Associate Professor Frans van der Meer
Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences
Delft University of Technology
The Netherlands

Professor Martin Fagerström
Department of Industrial and Materials Science
Chalmers University of Technology
Sweden

Supervisor:
Associate professor Esben Lindgaard
The CraCS research group
Department of Materials and Production
Aalborg University

Co-supervisor:
Associate professor Brian Lau Verndal Bak
The CraCS research group
Department of Materials and Production
Aalborg University

The PhD defense will be hosted by Moderator Jørgen Asbøll Kepler . The lecture constitutes a 45 minutes presentation by Guillem G. Trabal followed by a short break and a discussion session with questions from the opponents and the auditorium.

After the defense the department will host a reception.

Online participation via Teams

The PhD defence will be hosted as a hybrid event (physical + online attendance). Thus, you may join the PhD defence online by using the MS Teams link provided below. Note, that only the 45 minutes presentation by Guillem G. Trabal will be broadcasted online while the discussion session is reserved for the physical attendees.  

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